The Commerce City Council appears prepared to establish a recreation advisory board to help manage – and raise funds for — recreation activities in Commerce.

At Monday night’s work session, recreation director Scott Rodgers presented a draft document, based largely on Jefferson’s policy, providing for the creation of a seven-member volunteer board that would make recommendations to Rodgers and to the city council.

Rodgers told the council that he’d worked with a recreation advisory board in Ware County.

“It was fantastic, because we had fantastic people on the board and a strong chairman,” he said.

In Ware County, the board of commissioners appointed the members. The city council would likely appoint six of the seven members here, with Rodgers naming the seventh.

“It is purely advisory,” Rodgers assured. “The idea is this board deals with stuff before it gets to you guys.”

Ward 2 councilman Darren Owensby asked if the Ware County board helped form a booster club, one of the Commerce council’s stated goals. Rodgers said that the Jefferson advisory board acts as a booster club, and indicated that the intent is for the Commerce board to do the same. Any funds raised, he said, would go for items above and beyond the recreation budget and could be spent at the discretion of the board.
It was unclear whether the matter will be on the agenda for the council’s regular meeting Monday at 6:30 p.m. at the Commerce Civic Center.

The council seemed to agree that Rodgers should submit a “pool” of potential candidates from which the council would appoint six, and that the initial terms of office should be staggered. Eventually, all terms would be for three years. The council also seemed in consensus that at least one member of the board should be a nonresident, giving representation to the large number of nonresident families whose children participate in city recreation programs.

“I think there needs to be at least one person from each ward,” offered mayor pro tem Keith Burchett.

Rodgers also said that members would be asked to recuse themselves from voting for items that directly benefited their individual children.

“If it has anything to do with what your child is participating in, you pull yourself out,” he said.

Park Property Update

In other recreation-related business during the work session, interim city manager Tom Berry reported that an expected “study” on the 50-plus-acre site off Waterworks Road amounted only to minutes of a recreation town hall meeting.

“We got a report, but it’s really limited,” he said. “… It had nothing to do with the property.”

Berry proposed that the city “settle” the grant, which will amount to about $75,000, but he warned that accepting the money locks the property in for recreational use.

Originally, the city hoped to swap some of the land to an adjacent property owner for other land, to make the property more developable. The property owner declined. Berry said accepting the grant will make that kind of move much more difficult.

“You can add to it,” he said. “There’s no problem with that.”

On The Agenda

The following items will be on the agenda for action Monday night:

•approval of a schedule of events for the Downtown Development Authority, including the Tigers on the Town Pep Rally Aug. 30, a movie in the park on Sept. 28, a “Commerce goes Pink Party” on Oct. 4 with Northridge Medical Center; the Fall and Winter Fashion Show on Oct. 25, and the downtown trick-or-treat on Oct. 31.

•approval of a contract with the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (MEAG) to manage the city’s joint use of utility poles with other utilities. The program will cost the city $13,000 its first year and $10,000 thereafter, but will also provide revenue estimated at $30,000 a year in user fees. MEAG will also do regular inspections of the poles.

The council also discussed a proposal from accounting manager James Wascher to update the city’s travel and expense policy so Wascher can better track the spending of city officials and employees conducting city business. The policy, which will be acted on by the council in September, also clearly spells out what the city will not pay for — alcoholic beverages, additional mileage from side trips, extra expenses incurred during travel when spouses go along — and how much officials can spend before a written quote or bid is required.

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